Jonathan Holstein’s interest in early American life and its artifacts led him, with Honoree Gail van
der Hoof, to acquire a large quilt collection, mainly from Pennsylvania and the New England
states. He found quilts to be similar to modern art and wanted to share their collection with the
general public in an art museum that would display their quilts on the walls– like paintings.
In June 0f 1971, 62 pieced quilts from this collection were placed on display at the Whitney
Museum of American Art in New York City. The success of the exhibit was great, causing the six-
week exhibition to be extended to mid-September. The publicity and favorable responses from
art critics inspired other museums to host quilt exhibitions curated by Holstein, across America,
in Europe and Japan. His research resulted in the publication of The Pieced Quilt: An American
Design Tradition in 1973. He continued to write and lecture on quilts, their aesthetics and their
social history, and wrote the introduction and quilt commentary for one of the nation’s first state
quilt surveys, Kentuck Quilts 1800-1900.
On the 20th anniversary of the Whitney exhibition, Holstein and Shelly Zegart organized a
symposium and exhibits, Louisville Celebrates the American Quilt, where the original Whitney
exhibition was reinstalled. He chronicled this ground breaking exhibit in Abstract Design in
American Quilts: A Biography of an Exhibition. From 1992 to 1995 he wrote a number of articles
for The Quilt Journal: An International Review. He serves on the committee of The Alliance for
American Quilts and is an advisor to the International Quilt Study Center, University of
Nebraska, Lincoln. He appears in the book 88 Leaders in the Quilt World Today.
der Hoof, to acquire a large quilt collection, mainly from Pennsylvania and the New England
states. He found quilts to be similar to modern art and wanted to share their collection with the
general public in an art museum that would display their quilts on the walls– like paintings.
In June 0f 1971, 62 pieced quilts from this collection were placed on display at the Whitney
Museum of American Art in New York City. The success of the exhibit was great, causing the six-
week exhibition to be extended to mid-September. The publicity and favorable responses from
art critics inspired other museums to host quilt exhibitions curated by Holstein, across America,
in Europe and Japan. His research resulted in the publication of The Pieced Quilt: An American
Design Tradition in 1973. He continued to write and lecture on quilts, their aesthetics and their
social history, and wrote the introduction and quilt commentary for one of the nation’s first state
quilt surveys, Kentuck Quilts 1800-1900.
On the 20th anniversary of the Whitney exhibition, Holstein and Shelly Zegart organized a
symposium and exhibits, Louisville Celebrates the American Quilt, where the original Whitney
exhibition was reinstalled. He chronicled this ground breaking exhibit in Abstract Design in
American Quilts: A Biography of an Exhibition. From 1992 to 1995 he wrote a number of articles
for The Quilt Journal: An International Review. He serves on the committee of The Alliance for
American Quilts and is an advisor to the International Quilt Study Center, University of
Nebraska, Lincoln. He appears in the book 88 Leaders in the Quilt World Today.
| Jonathan Holstein |
Collector, historian, author, co-organizer of the 1971
Whitney Museum Exhibit. Inducted in 1979 at the
Continental Quilting Congress, Arlington, Virginia.
Research Associate: Julia A. Berg
.
Whitney Museum Exhibit. Inducted in 1979 at the
Continental Quilting Congress, Arlington, Virginia.
Research Associate: Julia A. Berg
.